Tuesday, February 5, 2013

I Don’t Know How to Tell You This But…

          For far too long, I’ve had this nagging feeling that everything that has happened in the past two or three years has been an exercise in futility and a kind of journalistic masturbation.  I was once a reviewer for a small review site.  We barely made the radar.  I didn’t even put the site on any resumes that I wrote after working for them.  Mostly because I no longer had any contact with my editor.  So it was rather pointless to put down a job that I had no way representing on paper. At least with contact information anyway.

          That was around the time; that on the advice of a friend I started writing this blog.  Back then it was called HDCGAMER.  I had no idea what I was doing and while I had SOME contacts.  I had no idea what to do or how to do it.  I was still writing reviews, previews, and even did some news coverage.  Problem was that unlike in my little website that I worked for; I had no press credentials and no art department.  I made due, I did what I could.

            I watched as all my most admired writers lost their jobs or quit.  I read everything I could get my hands on that wasn’t a paragraph review.  I read and did so much to become a better writer and journalist.  While the entirety of video game journalism was going through growing pains.  I was trying to create a niche for myself.  But again, I didn’t live in California or any where near it.  So things were tough.  Really tough…

            I tried to figure out my place in the strange mélange that was the video game journalism scene of the first year or two after the new consoles came out.  Everything seemed so exciting and beautiful.  Everything was a first; first E3, first phone interview, first story that got a mention on a major news site.  Yes, I did all that.  I was certainly not hiding my light under a bushel.  But as both my friends and critics have pointed out; I have both.  Really… I’m not exactly a professional.  I have had a second job the entire time I’ve been doing this and THIS is probably one of the main reasons that I’ve never succeeded at this.  It’s not something you can do part time.  Games have to be played, news has to read and interpreted, and now you have to do some many other things.  Update your Facebook, Twitter, advertise where you can, run contests,  try and contact developers or at least PR for comment,  etc…  Oh and then theirs video…  Yeah, I can barely do all that I’m doing, and now communities want you to run streams or have youtube videos as well.  No, that’s all right..

          I’ve been doing this terrible, part time, thankless job for about five years now and I can honestly say that for all the things I love about the game industry the perpetual problems that only seem to get worse have finally driven me from my Fortress of Solitude.  I’m done.  Sorry…

           I was a writer before I started doing this.  Mostly non-fiction. but recently also due to a friend’s suggestion.  I’m going to write fiction.  And probably non-fiction at some point.  But I’m done being a journalist.  If I ever even was one.  Many of my critics have said this, and most have had the problem that my lack of consistency has been right up there.  Well, unlike most of the people who do this “professionally” I don’t get paid to do this.  So tough shit!

             While I won’t stop playing video games; I would play them no matter what.  Which is why I started doing this in the first place.  I really no longer have anything to say and most people seem too interested in the next shiny thing passing before their eyes to read anything anymore.  Which I think is incredibly ironic that my next profession will be trying to capitalize on people reading at all.  But the world of video games will have to go on without me.  Which I have no doubt that it will.  Game journalism is like acting;  for every actor who quits or retires there are HUNDREDS to take their place.

             I want to say that video game developers are some of the coolest, best people in the entire world.  They are hard working and very intelligent.  I wish everyone who makes games the VERY BEST.  That goes for people who make iphone games to people who made games like Devil May Cry.  All of you ROCK and no amount of money or praise could communicate how much we really need you, even if people don’t all ways treat you that way.

            I just want to say that I love all of you, fans.  Especially the people who have read all my stuff or even one of my entries.  Because you are the reason I was doing this.  Because quite honestly, there was never any other reason to do it.